NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, which has suffered numerous
setbacks this year, was the subject of an oversight hearing
(9/10/98) by the Science Subcommittee on Space & Aeronautics.
Subcommittee Chairman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) chided NASA for
failing to deliver on many of its promises. The launch of Landsat-7
has been rescheduled for March of 1999. The Earth Observing System
(EOS) AM-1 satellite, which had been slated for launch in June of
1998, won't be ready until June of next year. And there continues
to be a large uncosted carrryover budget for Earth Science. In
spite of this fact, the Senate Appropriations Committee proposes to
increase spending for Space Science in FY 1999 by $25 million,
while the House bill cuts its budget by $60 million. Following is
testimony provided to the subcommittee:

Dr. Ghassem Asrar, NASA Assoc. Administrator for Earth
Science

Dr. Asrar tried to put the best face possible on NASA's
Earth Science programs. Still, he acknowledged that NASA is
"experiencing schedule problems in the testing phase of two key
missions, and continuing problems with [its] data information
system." The turnover rate for qualified programmers working on the
EOS data information system exceeds 35 percent. Delay in the
Landsat-7 program was caused by a failure in the power supply
system for the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus instrument.

According to Asrar, the uncosted carryover budget for Earth
Science in FY 1998 will be $550 million, compared to $765 million
in FY 1996. NASA hopes to reduce this amount by $150 million next
fiscal year. NASA's target for uncosted carryover funds is
$350-$400 million.

NASA plans to award five contracts by the end of the month for
Phase II of its program to purchase scientific data. Asrar said
NASA intends "to routinely include the commercial data buys as part
of [its] science solicitations."

Mr. Winokur discussed NOAA's programs to manage global
environmental data. There are three National Data Centers in the
U.S. which handle some "1,300 data bases, containing over 2,400
environmental variables, totaling 535,000 tapes, 375 million film
records, and 140 million paper records." Winokur said "a plan is
being developed and will be assessed to potentially transfer
responsibility from NASA to NOAA for long-term archiving of
atmospheric and oceanographic data gathered from the EOS
satellites."

In 1997, Raytheon merged with Hughes Electronics and
became the prime contractor for development of the EOS data and
information system. O'Connell said it "is one of the largest and
most sophisticated civil data management projects undertaken by the
federal government." The lines of computer code, he explained, were
severely underestimated and "have increased from 450,000 to
approximately 1.1 million lines of code to date."

An earlier delay was triggered in the program by changes in its
architecture following a National Research Council panel review,
which recommended a "more complex system design to meet science
community desires for a more decentralized system." More recently,
O'Connell said, "many engineers and programmers are leaving at an
annual rate exceeding 35 percent for higher salaries and other
career considerations."

Courtney Stadd, President of PixSell Data Brokers

The most pervasive and unfair competition faced by the
remote sensing industry, according to Mr. Stadd, comes from civil
and national security agencies, including government supported
institutions, particularly universities. "This problem appears to
be getting worse, not better," Stadd warned, "as evidenced by
several recent federal pronouncements and initiatives to "dump
hundreds of millions of dollars of government data on the market at
below-market prices."

Stadd praised NASA for progress in purchasing scientific data.
The commercial data buy program, he said, "is already proving to be
a pathfinding model for forging a critical partnership between the
commercial suppliers of remote sensing data and the researchers and
scientists in NASA and other agencies...."

About the NSS Capital Capsule
The Capsule is a timely report of highlights from Capitol Hill
hearings and other events involving space issues. Prepared by NSS
staff or volunteers who attend in person, the Capsule provides NSS
members and activists an "insider's" look into the thoughts of our
national elected officials on space issues.

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